Non-fatal diseases increasingly drive assisted suicide

It's a tourism boom, but not one to crow about. The number of people travelling to Switzerland to end their lives is growing. And it seems more and more people with a non-fatal disease are making the trip.

An ongoing study of assisted suicide in the Zurich area has found that the number of foreign people coming to the country for the purpose is rising. For example, 123 people came in 2008 and 172 in 2012. In total 611 people came over that period from 31 countries, with most coming from Germany or the UK, with 44 per cent and 21 per cent of the total respectively.

Neurological diseases, only some of which are fatal, were given as the reason for 47 per cent of assisted suicides for the years 2008 to 2012, up from 12 per cent in a similar study of the same region between 1990 and 2000. Rheumatic or connective tissue diseases, generally considered non-fatal, such as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis, accounted for 25 per cent of cases in the new study. Between 1990 and 2000, they were cited in only 10 per cent of cases. There was also a tiny rise in the number of people coming to Switzerland because of mental health problems – 3.4 per cent in the latest study, up from 2.7 per cent.

Cancer, on the other hand, was cited in 37 per cent of cases between 2008 and 2012, a decrease of 10 per cent.

The researchers write that figures such as these suggest that diseases which are non-fatal, or those which could be terminal but have yet to reach their final stages, could be becoming increasingly common reasons to seek assisted suicide in Switzerland – although they also note that the earlier study looked at Swiss residents whereas theirs looks at foreign visitors.

Travelling while they can

One reason that people with non-terminal conditions might be travelling to Switzerland to die could be down to the fact that people with late-stage diseases, for example, are less mobile, according to Michael Charouneau of UK campaign group Dignity in Dying. "We know that many of those who travel do so earlier than they would wish, whilst they are still physically well enough to make the journey," he says.

"The idea of assisted suicide is more acceptable today than it was 10 or 20 years ago," says Ruth Horn, a medical ethics researcher at the University of Oxford. She suggests that this might be one reason why more people with non-fatal diseases are choosing to end their lives. "Subsequently it appears to have become more and more acceptable to extend the right to assisted death to patients with non-terminal conditions."

The legal standing of relatives and doctors implicated in euthanasia has been debated in both Germany and the UK in recent years. While efforts to change Germany's criminal code have stalled, in the UK a private member's bill on assisted dying is being debated in the House of Lords. "People choosing to go to Switzerland for assistance to die is one signal that the law is not working here in the UK," says Charouneau.

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